Hi my credit score hovers around the 790s (FICO 8), 4/24, $80k income, and I'm interested in the Discover It Miles card. I'm wondering what I can do to maximize my CL if I get approved for the card? Never had a Discover card before. Should I open a savings/checking account with them first or anything?
Retired:
Thank you for the advice. :-) I'm actually not planning on applying until next year, and i just wanted to know if i needed to get my ducks in a row or anything. I'm 4/24 now, and I'm trying to focus on chase/amex biz cards till i go down to 3/24 next year.
@Anonymous wrote:I'm usually a proponent of Disco but, looking at your cards between Biz / personal you seem to have things covered. You mentioned chasing Chase and the CFU would give you the same 1.5% the Miles card would. Disco nerfed a lot of the perks of their cards awhile back that used to make them somewhat attractive.
CFU / Miles offer you 3% for the first year but, CFU caps at 20K.
Agreed that Disco might not offer you much beyond the SUB, unless you're just looking to diversify your banks more.
Also agreed that with your profile, you should be good to go as-is.
That said, I do like dealing with Discover. Good fraud prevention. Pretty widely accepted. Good apps and web interface. Free TU FICO BK Score 9 Credit scores and dark web monitoring. Easy and fast cash-back redemption. All US-based 24/7 customer service. Ability to get bonus for gift card redemption (example: $45 in cashback gets you $50 card sometimes, for 10% bonus). Competitive and frequent balance transfer offers. And generous credit lines.
MILES still has the great match for first year - no spending caps - so effectively 3% on everything. That Chase Freedom Unlimited 3% SUB up to $20K was recently discontinued. (Chase now only offers a $200 bonus on first $500 spend, which still isn't bad. But it's capped.)
While no banking relationship is needed, they do have some competitive banking products. For example their online money market savings currently pays 1.90% which is quite respectable. Yes, they are best known for their credit cards. But they are also the 37th largest US bank with $110 Billion in assets and a full range of banking products - no-fee checking, savings, CD's, money market, etc.
@Aim_High wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I'm usually a proponent of Disco but, looking at your cards between Biz / personal you seem to have things covered. You mentioned chasing Chase and the CFU would give you the same 1.5% the Miles card would. Disco nerfed a lot of the perks of their cards awhile back that used to make them somewhat attractive.
CFU / Miles offer you 3% for the first year but, CFU caps at 20K.
Agreed that Disco might not offer you much beyond the SUB, unless you're just looking to diversify your banks more.
Also agreed that with your profile, you should be good to go as-is.
That said, I do like dealing with Discover. Good fraud prevention. Pretty widely accepted. Good apps and web interface. Free TU FICO BK Score 9 Credit scores and dark web monitoring. Easy and fast cash-back redemption. All US-based 24/7 customer service. Ability to get bonus for gift card redemption (example: $45 in cashback gets you $50 card sometimes, for 10% bonus). Competitive and frequent balance transfer offers. And generous credit lines.
MILES still has the great match for first year - no spending caps - so effectively 3% on everything. That Chase Freedom Unlimited 3% SUB up to $20K was recently discontinued. (Chase now only offers a $200 bonus on first $500 spend, which still isn't bad. But it's capped.)
While no banking relationship is needed, they do have some competitive banking products. For example their online money market savings currently pays 1.90% which is quite respectable. Yes, they are best known for their credit cards. But they are also the 37th largest US bank with $110 Billion in assets and a full range of banking products - no-fee checking, savings, CD's, money market, etc.
Thank you everyone for the great input! @Aim_High You hit it on the nose, yes I'm primarily interested in the uncapped SUB (which is amazing and blows CFU out of the water), but also looking to diversify. One perk that Discover has, which you mentioned, is the one FICO score which I don't currently have access to. Citi gives me a free EQ FICO8, and EXP gives me a free FICO8, just missing TU.
I guess the only things that come close, IMHO, are the CIU 200k bonus, and the Spark Cash $2k bonus.
In addition, it seems nice to be able to PC the Miles card to a regular It card after 1st year to take advantage of the rotating bonus categories.